Monday, 07 October 2013

Four unique ways to protect your property

ANGRY FARMERS TRYING to stop elephants eating their crops
found the answer literally under their noses: their vindaloo lunches.

They got
the idea of planting rows of super-spicy chili pepper plants between farmland
and jungle in Karnataka, India.

Elephants
are like pre-1980s British people: they are deeply affronted if their food
tastes of anything.

Tuskers are likely to chew their way to the farm borders
and then stop to comment: “The food’s a touch too piquant on this side, chaps.
Let’s go the other way.”

Off they’ll stomp, muttering about “foreign muck”.

***

I
shared this news from the Indian Express
with a Malaysian reader who said residents of the Klang Valley in her country safeguarded
their borders using geese with goslings.

Like humans, geese who have recently become
parents become snappy and irritable, presumably because of lack of sleep and
the continuous need for midnight feedings, poop-cleaning, singing of the Barney
song, etc.

***It
strikes me that another big advantage of using guard geese is that you avoid
the embarrassment of having your guard dog stolen, which is what happened to a
household in the Philippines earlier this year, according to the Philippine
Daily Inquirer.

Professional
thieves sold the goods stolen from a house in Quezon City but decided to keep
the dog, who they renamed Lucky.

But recently, several months after the robbery,
suspicious cops took the victims into the presence of Lucky the dog—and the
mutt leapt up, overjoyed to see them.

Lucky is now a key item of evidence
against the thieves.

I strongly suspect the villains no longer think of the dog
as Lucky, but use a variety of other words to express their feelings about it.

***

One house in India protected its boundaries
with more than chili plants, geese or dogs.

A reader sent me a photo of a sign
on a gate saying: “BEWARE Ferocious Dogs and Ghosts.”

Good to keep the
riffraff out, but what if a famous super-skeptic like Richard Dawkins strolled by?
He could just waltz in and take your stuff.

***

If
you really want to protect your property, do what architects are planning to do
in South Korea: they are making their building invisible.

Not a joke. The
Infinity Tower is a skyscraper with sky-high video glass walls.

The plan is to broadcast
a live, moving image of the sky and clouds directly behind the building on each
wall: hey presto, the skyscraper will vanish into the background.

***

I
love this idea, and wonder if instead of limiting it to buildings, we can do it
to all large, ugly eyesores, including modern art installations, statues, politicians
and pretty much any really annoying thing or person.

Richard Dawkins would be
my choice.

***

But
of course the real joy of Infinity Tower, which is right next door to Incheon
Airport, is the fun and games it will provide for air traffic controllers.

You
could make the skyscraper invisible until the pilot has set his course for the
runway, and then suddenly turn it fully visible, with a flashing neon light
saying “Surprise”.

I’m sure the pilots,
as they take evasive action, will totally see the funny side. Right, Grandpa?